XF86Config, logs and other large posts

cbolin

The gentoo discussion forum is one of the very best assets of the distro.

One thing that makes researching solutions to a problem less optimal is the need to post HUGE data files to help troubleshoot problems. So entire XF86Config files, or logs are pasted wholesale into messages.

Is there any way to provide an "attached" post so a reader could still post them, but they wouldn't clog up the thread for those that don't need to see them? Then moderators could help clean up these massive posts to make the threads more readable?

It would also be excellent if a user could add a small image (like a screenshot) to a post without having to have to link to a URL. When you link to a URL the pictures usually go 404 after the problem is resolved by the user or they break the link. I understand this is costly disk space, but there are more broken links in posts than ones that work. Many times these gfx are useful in solving problems.

Anyway, thanks for the excellent resource.

Celtis · l33t Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 737

Uploading images would be a Bad Thing (TM)... just think of all the extra bandwith that would be sucked up by the monthly desktop posts alone. As for logs and such, surely there are still some free providers that could host a copy of the file. If someone used this they could leave there files there and create a second account when they ran out of space (not that I'm encouraging them too! :lol:

)

cbolin · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 11:18 pm Post subject:

I don't understand your objections.

1. Moderators can always delete off-topic posts, and that should include images.

2. Putting logs on remote systems means the post is only valid while that data remains accessible. So future problem solvers get no benefit.

Celtis · l33t Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 737

Yeah but if you look in the announcements you'll see that there's already been downtime related to the amount of bandwidth being used. Forcing gentoo.org to host images and files for you will increase the amount of bandwith being used exponentially so a month from now the service would be completely unusable (at no fault to Gentoo.org). The only option they would have then would be to make people pay to post so that they could pay for extra bandwidth / storage space etc.